Tag Archives: stock photography

We’re selling out of tables for HOW’s Stock Photo Expo. Sign up now to make sure you get your spot at the 2014 HOW Design Live Conference.

The Stock Photo Expo at the HOW Design Live Conference is the single best way for you to sell DIRECTLY to 3,200+ design professionals—and it’s the most effective use of your 2014 marketing budget.

EACH ATTENDEE SPENDS AN AVERAGE OF $15,000 ANNUALLY ON STOCK PHOTOS!

STOCK PHOTO EXPO Tuesday, May 13 • 8:30 AM – 6:30 PM

Join us for the Stock Photo Expo, presented in conjunction with PACA! HOW Design Live Conference attendees (including attendees from The Dieline Packaging Design Conference, the In-House Managers Conference, The Creative Freelancer Conference and The Leadership Conference) will visit your table throughout the day providing ample opportunity for them to interact with you.

EXPO EXHIBITORS RECEIVE:

• a table and two chairs on which to display materials from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm in the HOW Design Live Conference registration foyer.
• Electricity and Internet service are available for an additional fee.

***SPECIAL OFFER for PACA Members: As a member of PACA, you can participate in the Stock Photo Expo for just $1,500! Saving $350!

No other event brings together this many experienced, influential buyers of stock photography. In fact, 73% of our 2014 attendees have never been to a HOW Design Conference before. And for 72% of attendees, this is the only event they will attend this year!

There’s no time to wait—space is starting to sell out!

For more information on exhibiting at the 2014 HOW Conference Stock Photo Expo in Boston, contact Elayne Brink Recupero at 267-247-5874 or elaynerecupero@gmail.com.

WordPress Users Can Choose from Dreamstime’s 22.2 Million Image Library

WordPress Users Can Now Add Dreamstime’s Rich and Engaging Free and Commercial Copyright-Attributed Images to Their Blogs and Websites

NASHVILLE, TN —Dreamstime, a distinguished leader in stock photography, today announced the release of a plugin for WordPress, the leading free blogging framework and content management system used by more than 60 million websites. Several top brands including Coca-Cola, The New York Times Company, Sony, The Rolling Stones, Linkedin, and Reader’s Digest utilize WordPress to build and manage their sites.

The plugin gives WordPress users access to free and commercial content from Dreamstime’s massive image catalog, allowing them to easily embed professional quality images. A credit line promoting the image conent on Dreamstime can also be displayed using the plug-in, and users are encouraged to include proper copyright information. The easy-to-use plugin means WordPress users will only select approved stock images, instead of pulling low-quality images from search engines or social media sites without permission. WordPress users can link their Dreamstime account so they can have seamless access to commercial images, and the ability to use credits or subscriptions from their WordPress acount remotely.

With the new plug-in, WordPress users can select from Dreamstime’s catalog of more than 22.2 million professional stock photos. They can insert an unlimited number of images directly from the WordPress Add Media tool, so they never need to leave the WordPress platform. All Dreamstime images are model released and attributed to the proper entity, removing the blogger or web designers’s concerns about any future copyright claims from photographers or models. It also allows WordPress users to generate income from the automatic integration with the Dreamstime referal program which rewards the highest royalties in the industry.

“The WordPress community includes a massive group of individuals and businesses that are building everything from simple blogs to complex image-intensive sites,” said Serban Enache, Dreamstimes’s CEO and co-founder. “Users can now utilize this handy plug-in tool to embed images from our massive free library which offers high-quality images from dozens of categories. We’re also educating users on the importance of managing image copyright, instilling in them best practices which can protect them from the pitfalls of copyright infringement.”

Michael Masterson and I ( Ellen Herbert) were speaking about the history of our industry. Again and again, one name came up as a leader and advocate for all things stock photography. And as a result, I asked Michael to interview Cathy Aron.

Cathy Aron has been the Executive Director of PACA, the Digital Licensing Media Association, since 2006. Prior to that she was a longtime member as well as the president. Her involvement in the image industry goes back to her childhood – literally. Cathy and I talked recently about her background and where she sees PACA and the industry today.

Michael Masterson: You basically grew up in this industry. Tell me about your father and how he, and later you, got involved.

Cathy Aron: Actually, my father, Nat Harrison, was a jeweler, but he was a frustrated photographer and had done photography during the war and after. He even had a dark room built at the back of our house. When he and my mother started traveling around the world, he took photos and would do slide shows at schools. When he needed fill-in and title slide images he used a place called Wolfe Worldwide Films in Santa Monica. They specialized in selling duplicate slides inexpensively to schools and individuals. In 1978, WWF was for sale and my dad decided to buy it for something to do in his retirement (which was a few years off) and he asked if I wanted to run it. I was raising my children at the time, looking at for a part-time something to do. So I traveled to Santa Monica everyday from Mission Viejo (about 60 miles and in California that can be forever!) for a few months learning the photography business before moving it to Mission Viejo. A few months after we took over the business, my dad suddenly passed away at 60 leaving a mortgage on WWF, a jewelry business, and a devastated family. I didn’t want my mom to be burdened with the business loan, so I took over WWF and realized that there was something else that you could do with the originals and I began learning all I could about the stock photo end of the business.

Michael: You had your own agency, Photo Network, for a long time. How did it get started?

Cathy: I found a partner, Gerry McDonald, who knew more than I did about the rights management part of the business and together we formed Photo Network. We built a nice general stock agency. She had a collection of images from a multimedia company called Pix Productions she and her husband had plus I had the travel images from WWF. Then we began representing photographers, selling mainly to ad agencies and developers. My partner died after about fifteen years, but I continued with Photo Network for 27 years.

Michael: You came to PACA at a very turbulent time in its history. How did you become the executive director?

Cathy: I was president of PACA after we fired our executive director in 2002. We realized she had embezzled a lot of money from the association. So, for two years I served as the president without an ED. It was a tough time for the organization but also an amazing time as everyone pitched in to save PACA, both monetarily and with their time and efforts. It did, however, take an incredible amount of time from my business. When it was feasible to hire an executive director again, I had just made the decision to sell Photo Network, so I applied for the job along with many others and was lucky to get it.

Michael: What are some of the things you’re proudest of during your time as ED at PACA?

Cathy: One would certainly be the organization, with Cathy Sachs, then executive director of ASPP, of the associations group. It was originally over the proposed Orphan Works Legislation, but we still continue to meet today. When we brought everyone together back in 2006 (I think that’s right) it was the first time we had gathered all the visual arts associations together in one room to discuss mutual interests. The participation and co-operative outreach of this group has enabled us to gain much more impact that each association would have individually. We have worked together on amicus briefs, statements for the copyright office and lobbying to the congress for legislation favorable to our industry.

I’m also very proud of pacaSearch that is the one benefit of our organization which directly benefits the business of our members. It’s the mega search engine that helps to level the playing field between large and small agencies allowing buyers to find the library that has the best images for theirs needs. It’s free to all PACA members. A recent survey by Visual Steam showed it came in as the fifth most-used site for buyers.

It’s also been wonderful working with Nancy Wolff and getting a much broader understanding of all the copyright issues and knowing that we have the best possible representation with her at the helm. Her expertise and standing in the copyright community gives PACA it’s best chance to make an impact.

Michael: What are some other PACA highlights during your tenure?

Cathy: Our PACA Conferences would be definite highlights. We have had some amazing meetings over the last few years and we’ve provided our members with excellent opportunities to learn and grow their businesses with the information provided at these events. Moving out of a hotel last year and teaming up with Visual Connections has given a new spark to the meeting and we are looking forward to even more exciting innovations this year.

Our efforts in copyright education and outreach to schools and the community have and remain a priority for PACA. Colleges and universities throughout the country as well as many high schools use our Power Point presentation.

Also, our efforts with the publishers to work on contracts that are equitable to both sides was rewarded this year with a contract with Cengage that we feel has great language and terms for agencies.

It’s also been great getting new people involved in the industry. I have always been a firm believer that you get back more than you give.

Michael: What issues is PACA addressing right now and what other major industry issues do you see?

Cathy: We’re still on top of the copyright office’s debate on a Copyright Small Claims. This is a vital discussion for the industry and we’ve responded to the Copyright Office’s three requests for comments on remedies with many of our suggestions included in their report.

We are also a complainant in the ASMP vs. Google Books case. We will be part of an amicus brief for the Authors Guild appeal vs. Google Books. We are working right now on Patent Trolling and engaging the agencies that have been sued by Uniloc. This is a very serious problem for our members and non-members alike and we are actively perusing ways to help them collectively find materials to fight these claims.

I think that piracy and copyright infringement continue to be the biggest issues facing our industry. Upholding copyright is the biggest challenge to all of us.

Michael: The organization has changed like so many other industry trade associations. Talk about the challenges it’s facing and how you and your board are dealing with them.

Cathy: Buy-outs and consolidations have been the biggest challenges to PACA in the last 5-10 years. Our association has definitely felt the impact of the closure of many of the smaller agencies. Newer tech companies don’t always feel the value of an association, but the board is trying to reach out to the newer players and give them benefits that will appeal to them. The issues that face our industry will impact all the people in the industry, no matter what their structure is, so it is important that we work together to protect copyright or there will be no business.

Michael: One last question. As someone who obviously loves photography, if you could choose one photograph to hang in your living room, what would it be?

Cathy: This is an impossible question. As Ron [Cathy’s husband] will tell you, I have a very eclectic taste in art. I love the photographs of Ansel Adams and Arnold Newman, Annie Leibowitz, Art Wolff, etc., etc. But I’m also drawn to the work of new artists. I love beautiful scenics and graphic black and whites. I could never choose just one!

Michael Masterson has a broad range of experience in marketing, business development, strategic planning, contact negotiations and recruiting in the photography, graphic design and publishing industries. In addition to his long experience at the Workbook and Workbookstock, Masterson owned and was creative director of his own graphic design firm for several years. Masterson has been a speaker or panelist at industry events such as Seybold, PhotoPlus Expo, Visual Connections and the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) national conference. He is past national president of the American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP). He currently heads Masterson Consulting, working on projects ranging from business development for creative companies and sourcing talent for them to promoting and marketing industry events as well as providing resume and professional profile services for job-seekers. He can be reached at michaeldmasterson@gmail.com.

PACA Joins the staff of Grant Heilman Photography in mourning the death of their founder

Grant Heilman passed away on Tuesday, February 25 at his home in Buena Vista, Colorado, following a brief illness. He was born in 1919, in Tarentum, Pennsylvania. He had a wonderful small town bringing up, and loved small town living his entire life. He could stand large cities for as much as a week at a time.

He attended the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, and then Swarthmore College, from which he graduated in 1941. He remained a supporter of Swarthmore during his lifetime, and felt they had given him a wonderful education and lifelong friends. His education was furthered through military service in World War II. He was drafted as a private in September of 1941, was demobilized as a Captain in November of 1945, spending almost four years overseas. After Pearl Harbor he talked the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps into accepting him as a Special Agent. From then on he was sometimes in uniform, sometimes in civilian clothes. Shipped to England in June of 1942, he worked mostly in London, partly as a liaison officer with Scotland Yard.

He went to Algeria, North Africa, in the invasion of November 1942 and eventually became Detachment Commander of the CIC operation in Oran, Algeria. Most of his work gradually became acting as liaison with the French civilian and military counter intelligence forces. With the invasion of southern France he moved to the Counter Intelligence staff of the Sixth Army Group, and his work there, again, was mostly as liaison with the First French Army’s counter intelligence, which had come from Algeria to France. His most publicized activity in France was in early 1945, heading up a team of French and American counter intelligence agents ordered to recover America’s most secret cipher machine, the SIGABA—and to find out who had stolen it. It had been stolen from the U.S. Army’s 28th division near Colmar, in Alsace. The story of its recovery has been widely written up over the years, though who was really responsible for its theft has never been told. Grant was awarded both the American Bronze Star and the French Croix de Guerre for his work on the missing SIGABA. He was also made an honorary Private First Class in the French Foreign Legion while he was in Algeria. He finished his military career doing staff counter intelligence work at the US Group Control Council in Berlin, where he continued liaison with the French and the British counter intelligence and, when they could be found, the Russians.

Following his military service he returned to Pennsylvania, where he had grown up, decided he’d had enough of intrigue and avoided going into the fledgling CIA, which many of his fellow counter intelligence agents continued their careers in.

In 1946 he married Marjorie Mapel, a sculptor, print maker, and industrial designer. He started work as a magazine journalist, gradually specializing in agricultural subjects, doing both writing and photography. In 1948, he founded the photographic stock agency that still bears his name and is located in Lititz, Pennsylvania. He lived in Lititz for thirty years, becoming a devoted advocate for conservation and preservation of open space. Grant was a Nationally known and respected photographer covering the Country taking photos of our lands. Grant believed in and was an active supporter of the photographic and agriculture community and industry organizations having two National Presidents of the PACA (Picture Archive Council of America trade association) on staff. He was involved in the National AgriMarketing Association, America Agricultural Editors Association, The Agriculture Relations Council, American Society of Picture Professionals, American Society of Magazine Photographers and many others. He retired as CEO from Grant Heilman Photography in 2011. His writing or photographs have appeared in almost every publication, and in dozens of textbooks. He has authored, both text and photographs, a number of books, best known of which are Farm Town and Farm. In 2012 he self published a western novel, Krieger. He and Marjorie had one child, Hans, born in 1957. Marjorie died in 1961. Grant married a Swarthmore College classmate, Barbara Whipple, who was also a printmaker and field editor of American. Artist Magazine Barbara and Grant moved from Lititz, Pennsylvania, to Buena Vista, Colorado, in 1976 and lived together there until Barbara’s death in 1989.

In 1994 Grant married Conrad W. Nelson, a neighbor and longtime friend from Pennsylvania, and she moved to Buena Vista. Conrad is also a printmaker, photographer, and community leader. Obviously, during his lifetime, Grant learned a lot about, had a great interest in, and loved, art. With Barbara Whipple he was one of the founders of the Chaffee County Council on the Arts. After Barbara Whipple’s death in 1989 most of their collection of prints and paintings was given to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.

He had a longtime interest in land use planning, enjoyed hiking and the outdoors, particularly in studying and improving the forest that surrounded his and Conrad Nelson’s home west of Buena Vista. Above all, he just had a great time being involved in small town activities, and Buenie, with all its wonders and all its problems, remained the ultimate small town that suited him well. He found fun in going to the Post Office every morning, getting lunch at Punky’s, going out to the college, and being fortunate to be able to have helped fund everything from the Clinic, to the schools, to the Barbara Whipple Trail, and to a lot of small activities that no one but the recipients know about.

He is survived by his wife, Conrad Nelson; his son, Hans, a granddaughter Jorie Beth, and two step daughters, Kate Schilling, of Silver City, New Mexico, and Chris Schilling, of Boise, Idaho. Contributions may be made to Hospice, Chaffee County, The Nature Conservancy of Colorado. Private cremation was held. Service to be held at a later date.